


pawns, sacrifice

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Assassination Attempt(s), Becoming The Thing You Hate, Broken Loyalty, Complicated Relationships, Dark Leia Organa, Empress Leia Organa, Established Relationship, F/F, Imperial Jyn Erso, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love Leads Characters To Ruin, Sacrifice, Sith Leia Organa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-19 04:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16526999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: They would make things better for everyone. The Emperor, Leia’s father, her mother? None of them could do that. Not even Jyn’s father, genius though he was, could do it. His genius merely wrought the same death the Emperor wanted, that Darth Vader had wanted.Their family legacies had tainted them both. But Leia had not been strong enough to resist the pull of the dark.





	pawns, sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



The bed creaked as Jyn pushed herself up onto her elbows and swung her legs over the side. She winced at the sound. In the silence of the room, it cut through the air like a knife, shattered the illusion that all was well. Twisting, she watched as Leia slept, her chest rising and falling in equal, rhythmic measure. Her slumber was so rarely troubled, a wonder to Jyn, who never passed a night without waking up at least once, nightmares clinging to her conscious thoughts with cold, rotting hands.

This was the galaxy they lived in, that Jyn helped build and rebuild each and every day. She did not wonder at the darkness of her mind; she already knew why it was so. It was merely resentment that had her glaring as Leia remained stubbornly unaware of the troubles that dogged Jyn’s steps.

How lucky it was that blood did not drown Leia’s dreams in red; given that she was responsible for so much of the blood that drenched reality, it really was a miracle. Jyn often thought to ask her what it was like to live so easily with herself when Jyn could not. Even if she asked, she wasn’t sure that Leia would be able to explain it. There was an emptiness in her gaze these days that Jyn could not untangle. Her attentions ranged far afield. She was their leader and Jyn no longer knew where it was she lead them.

The vast stretch of the Empire belonged to her and her alone.

Jyn wasn’t certain any longer that she cared enough to rule it. She certainly no longer cared that her most powerful generals were jockeying for positions they had no business holding. Assassinations were growing more common and Leia merely smiled from her flashing onyx throne. “Good,” she said, “let them prove themselves strong enough for their appointments.”

In Jyn’s opinion, it was not strength the Empire needed. It had plenty of those things. Leia was strong enough for all of them. No. What the Empire needed was smart, capable bureaucrats to keep the vehicles of conquest moving, scientists to improve the technology of control. There were fewer and fewer of them to go around. Anyone who was not ambitious or cunning ran the risk of dying for their devotion to something greater than the ladder beneath their feet.

And Leia encouraged it even if she did not know it.

Blood and blood again. It pooled around their feet. They could repaint Imperial Center with blood and have plenty left over to drown their enemies in the dregs. Sometimes Jyn imagined the bottom of her boots were coated in brown iron that flaked off in her wake, a trail of rusted death she left behind wherever she went.

This was not what she signed on for; this was not what Leia had promised her.

She felt herself a fool, choked on her own hopes and dreams for what the galaxy could be. There was no trusting a Sith lord. It was known even from the tales of old that they were little more than snakes. Leia’s own fangs had destroyed her mother and father both, her brother. She’d thought herself immune, that Leia’s love for her would save her. Now she didn’t know. She couldn’t be sure. The only thing she knew was that Leia cared little for the state of the galaxy she proclaimed to all she loved above everything else.

That was enough.

There was little doubt left in Jyn that it was a lie she told others to soothe them and ensure their complacence.

But, she thought, her stomach a roiling ocean, poisoned and acidic, she would be complacent no more.

She still loved the Leia she remembered from their childhood, the bright and shining girl who wanted to ensure the Emperor’s stated goals were met. Prosperity for all. Justice for those who deserved it. Order amidst a universe that demanded chaos. Jyn had believed in that, had believed in her.

Her eyes again found Leia, innocent and untroubled Leia, who’d allowed the slaughter of a world for no better reason than they showed too little deference, who’d stolen an entire system’s resources on a whim. The Empire would fall apart around her—already there were tales of rebellion and Orson Krennic could only scramble so fast to devise new tools and weapons to dissuade them, Moff Tarkin could only implement them so quickly—and she didn’t seem to care.

Jyn cared. Jyn cared deeply. The sacrifices her father and mother had made would mean nothing if the Empire didn’t succeed. Galen and Lyra Erso, held on a leash to ensure the Empire succeeded, dead because they couldn’t abide those yokes. Jyn, raised by the Empire’s finest, taught that their truths had borne bitter fruit. Their beliefs had aligned with the Republic’s and yet they’d run from it and the Republic had collapsed in on itself anyway. The weight of its rot was too great. It required adjustments.

Palpatine began the process. Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala refined it.

Leia, Empress Leia Amidala after her mother, had been meant to complete the transformation. But there was fresh rot in the foundation and Jyn knew, though it broke her heart to admit to it, that Leia was that rot.

Though she did not speak aloud as she reached for her blaster, she sent a prayer to every god who might listen, every creature in the Force that might hear her beg and do something about it, that her shot would find its mark true. The bed creaked again as though to prove the galaxy was on Leia’s side and Leia shifted slightly, closer to consciousness than she was a moment ago.

Damn it.

Damn it, damn it.

Jyn snatched up her blaster and lifted it and in her one moment of hesitation, Leia’s eyes snapped open.

They blazed gold in the dark, lit with regret and pain and anger, so much anger. Betrayal, too. Jyn’s hands shook as she pulled the trigger, useless though she knew the gesture would be. Leia could stop blaster fire. And Leia didn’t need her to shoot for the betrayal to be complete.

She was dead, done, too late. A walking corpse. A puppet to play out each and every one of Leia’s whims. It took every ounce of strength for her to not fall to the floor, her failure well and truly complete now. She had no better chance than this. No finer moment, an unsuspecting night on a day that would, ultimately, not ever matter. There was no message to be sent, no message necessary. If she’d been but a little quicker, she might have made this occasion a momentous one.

Now it was a mere footnote in history. Jyn Erso proved herself a traitor and nothing, not a damned thing, would ever, ever change.

“Oh, Jyn,” Leia said as she sat up. Her voice was sweet as honey, perfumed with the smoke of the fragrant woods that made up Leia’s favorite colognes. Her anger gutted itself and a sere placidness returned to her features. “You, too?”

Tears prickled in Jyn’s eyes. Yes, her, too. Yes, her, always. Always so long as Leia was this writhing monster locked in a body that looked like the woman Jyn loved. Jyn could barely manage to glance at her from beneath lowered lashes. “You aren’t you any longer,” she said, as though Leia would accept an explanation. “This isn’t the Empire we promised one another we’d build.”

Leia stretched across the bed, a smooth, shifting phantasm as she gripped the sheets. With more grace than anyone should rightly possess, she perched herself on the edge of the bed, pulled the blaster from Jyn’s hands, tossed it across the room. It clattered to the hardwood floor and skittered into the wall. “Is it not?” She tilted her head. “It certainly seems like it to me.”

The people will rebel. They will overpower the Imperial governors. Jyn did not need the Force to see it. She only needed a history book and eyes to look around her. They were going to change the history books, she and Leia were. That was what they used to talk about late into the night.

They would make things better for everyone. The Emperor, Leia’s father, her mother? None of them could do that. Not even Jyn’s father, genius though he was, could do it. His genius merely wrought the same death the Emperor wanted, that Darth Vader had wanted.

Their family legacies had tainted them both. But Leia had not been strong enough to resist the pull of the dark.

Jyn hadn’t been strong enough to save her from it either. Jyn’s love wasn’t enough. Nothing, she thought, would be enough now. All was lost.

All was lost. And all Jyn could feel was a chasm opening up where her heart used to be. If Leia struck her now, she wasn’t sure she would even feel it. A small respite in all of this. A small piece of grace from the Force perhaps.

“Jyn,” Leia said, like she used to, “come here.” There was a core of steel in her words that told Jyn she should not deny Leia in this. Not that she would. What was the point after all? She patted the edge of the bed as though she were merely asking her lover to come back so that they might embrace.

Whatever embrace Leia intended, it was to Jyn’s detriment to go.

Jyn sighed. She accepted.

She took a seat next to Leia, her body heat leeching into Jyn’s side, hot enough to burn. She had always been so. There was a time when Jyn loved that heat, when she believed that she would never be warm again without it. Foolish, that. All of Leia was so hot that it destroyed every nerve, every feeling inside of Jyn. There was nothing beyond the physical here.

That could not hurt her any longer.

It was a relief in its way.

Leia’s hand came up to caress the underside of Jyn’s jaw, her neck. Her fingers were preternaturally cool, a sharp contrast to the rest of her. Jyn might have called her a witch. Others had called Leia worse. The tears dried in the wake of that touch. Jyn was grateful. She could die with a shard of her dignity intact. Nobody would be able to call her soft, though they might conclude that she was a fool.

“I will miss you,” Leia said. Her teeth grazed the shell of Jyn’s ear and Jyn shuddered at the feel of it. It was a tease and Jyn was almost certain her lips were forming the shape of a smile. She sounded just the littlest bit pleased to have discovered Jyn’s treachery, like she’d expected it all along and gloried in the confirmation. “I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

 _It doesn’t_ , she thought, pained, fighting the urge to draw in deep, gulping breaths. It was so very hard to breathe right now. Jyn knew what that meant. _It doesn’t have to be this way. You can stop it. You can stop it. Please stop it._

_Please._

Leia—and Jyn wasn’t surprised in the slightest, though it destroyed her to be so—did not stop it.

She did not stop. Not even for Jyn.


End file.
